


i can feel it in my teeth

by castielanderson



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Depression, Gen, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 23:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4684664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castielanderson/pseuds/castielanderson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a combination of Helen Cho's technology and Project T.A.H.I.T.I., Pietro survives, but at a terrible cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i can feel it in my teeth

The hardest thing Pietro has ever done is this - not watching his parents die, not being experimented on by an organization he later found out used him for the wrong reasons, not fighting the Avengers, but this - waking up. The darkness is familiar now. It’s all he knows, and pulling himself back to consciousness is like being transported to another dimension. His eyes open, and he doesn’t have the faintest idea of what is happening. He doesn’t know where he is, how he got there, why he’s there, and for the first moments, he doesn’t even know who he is.

It all comes back slowly. Pietro. Pietro Maximoff. Twin brother of Wanda Maximoff. Son of Django and Marya Maximoff. He’s from Sokovia. Sokovia, where the Nazis have taken over his people. The Nazis. HYDRA. HYDRA, who experimented on him. Quicksilver. That’s who he is. He fought the Avengers, he joined the Avengers, and now? Now he’s in the hospital? He must have been injured, must have lost himself in the battle to save the Sokovian city.

Everything is so bright, so bright in contrast to the experimentation rooms. He remembers waking up like this before, confused, in excruciating pain, and completely unaware of his surroundings, time, and place. He remembers the dark. He remembers all the people standing around him, staring at him, watching the way his body moved without his consent, limbs trying to fly away. It was so painful, but everyone smiled and laughed as if they’d been graced by God.

Now, nobody stands around him. When that sinks in, he starts to grow anxious.

“Wanda?” he whispers, out of instinct.

Then the panic starts.

“Wanda?” he asks, louder.

He doesn’t like being alone, he never has. Especially not now, when the last thing he remembers is battle, is leaving his sister behind before the pain took him.

“Wanda?” he yells. “Wanda! Wanda! Wanda!”

That gets someone’s attention, but not the someone he needs. A nurse comes rushing into the room, overwhelmed.

“Mr. Maximoff? Oh, Mr. Maximoff, you’re awake!” She stops in the doorway, and leans back out to call to someone else, “Call Cap!”

Once inside the room, she focuses her attention on Pietro, who is now suffocating in his sheets, desperately trying to get out. But like the experimentation procedures, his limbs are moving without his control, speeding and slowing and only tangling him further.

“Mr. Maximoff, calm down. Breathe, breathe.”

“Where’s my sister? Where’s Wanda?”

“She’s coming. We’ve called for her.”

Pietro slows down enough to notice the nurse is tampering with his IV. Within seconds, he’s out again. Whatever it is, it’s only a low dose, because he wakes up again rather quickly. He doesn’t even feel as though he slept at all, but time has clearly passed because when he opens his eyes, Steve Rogers and his sister are at his bedside.

“Pietro?” Wanda says, laying a small hand on his shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” is all he can muster up, and he’s surprised to hear the gravel in his voice. It’s all rasp, barely gritting past his throat. “How - how long have I been here?”

Wanda looks to Rogers, who answers, “Nearly a month.”

Pietro feels his eyes widen, his breath leave his lungs. He knew, clearly, that he had been injured, but he had no idea that it had been that bad. For him to stay here, not waking, for an entire month - it’s maddening.

“What happened?”

Again, Wanda looks to Rogers.

“You sustained several life threatening injuries. Ultron unleashed a fury of weaponized jets. You got caught in the crossfire. We carried you to safety, and you’ve been under SHIELD’s care.”

“When will I be free to go?” Pietro asks, anxious, and Wanda gives him a look of disapproval.

“It while probably be awhile,” Rogers admits. “Despite your metabolism and powers, the healing process has been grueling.” He sighs, and looks at Pietro with something akin to pity. “I know you want to get out of bed, but these injuries are serious, Pietro. You have to take it easy, or you’ll be here even longer.”

“Rest, brother,” Wanda says, and it’s an order. She leans down and kisses him gently on the forehead. “I will be here when you wake up.”

Pietro hadn’t noticed he tired he felt until now. Now he can feel the deep, deep ache in his bones, the leaded weight of his eyelids, and the fuzziness in his brain that is calling for sleep. He lets his head loll to the side, and before he knows it, is out again like a lightbulb.

_

Rogers is right. It takes weeks before Pietro is strong enough again. In the beginning, he can’t even sit up. Wanda spoon feeds him and it’s terribly embarrassing, but there’s nothing he can do. When he can sit, he still isn’t able to walk. He is hauled around the facility by a wheelchair and it drives him absolutely crazy. A month ago, he was faster than the speed of sound, and now he can’t even hobble down a hallway. 

When he does start walking, it’s painful. His legs don’t hurt, but his lungs kill, and his abdomen screams and his neck is so strained it feels like his head might just roll off his body. He does master it again, and soon after that, is able to jog. They let him run on a treadmill for fifteen minutes straight, and he doesn’t even break a sweat. That’s the day he’s released, and he whizzes out of the hospital and straight to Wanda’s car. She smiles, but there’s a forced quality to it, like she’s second-guessing her happiness. Pietro isn’t sure what to think.

Two more days of adjusting, and then he’s allowed at the training center. In those two days, Wanda shows him around Stark Tower. He gets his own room on the fifteenth floor, across the hall from Wanda’s. They share a living space and a kitchenette, but thankfully both have their own bathrooms. He knows he’s a speedster, but god, Wanda takes way too long to get ready in the morning.

He likes his room, he decides pretty quickly. His bed is plain, no extra pillows or “duvet cover” like Wanda has. He has a bookshelf and a desk, where he keeps his history books and philosophy anthologies. And either as a joke or a helpful way to keep pace with his metabolism, Stark has given him a customized treadmill that automatically adjusts to his speed and any speed.

There are five more in the training center, along with a track, but it’s just an average track, as all other members of the Avengers use it. There are gymnastic mats, bars, and rings for flexibility and agility practice. There are walls of un-weaponized weapons - dull knives and unloadable guns to practice and maneuver with. The range is another part of the training center entirely, and requires them to be at safe distances from their targets.

Pietro starts easy with training. He gets up early and runs with Rogers. Sometimes Sam joins them, but he gets fed up with them lapping him and runs later with Natasha instead. He likes the gymnastic equipment as well, and he finds that he’s particularly flexible in ways he hadn’t known before.

He never does anything with weapons, partly because he doesn’t need them, but mostly because there are alarm bells in his mind that keep him away from them. Something doesn’t sit right with him, and phantom pains stab his abdomen whenever he looks at the automatic rifles.

The more he trains, the more time it takes up. He doesn’t like sitting around, especially not when he knows that he got himself life-threateningly injured. He needs to be fast, needs to stay fast, needs to get faster. If he can’t save himself, how is he supposed to save everyone else?

Fifteen days after he’s left the infirmary, Clint finds him on the track.

“You better take it easy, or you’re going to run a ring in the floor.”

Pietro skids to a halt. “Do you drill holes into targets? Hmm? Does that keep you from training?”

Clint sticks his tongue in his cheek and huffs. “Don’t get smart with me, kid.”

“Don’t call me ‘kid.’”

Clint scoffs and straightens his quiver. “Alright kid? You wanna train? Let’s train.”

Pietro’s feet start to vibrate. “Don’t call me ‘kid.’”

Clint pulls a dull arrow from his quiver and notches it in his bow. He pulls it back slowly and aims it at Pietro, whose eyes go wide.

“What are you doing?”

“What I should’ve done before you decided to get stupid. I would’ve just disabled you.”

Pietro’s eyebrows knit together, and he stops vibrating. A lump forms uneasy in his throat. “What are you talking about?”

Clint sighs. He drops his bow and stows the arrow back in his quiver. “You’re a kid, no matter how many times you tell me not to call you that, Pietro. The rest of us are old, hardened. We’ve dealt with so much shit that we have no other choice but to be here. But you’re young. Barely an adult.”

“I’m twenty-five,” Pietro counters, but that doesn’t make a difference to Clint. Perhaps he doesn’t remember. Perhaps he thinks of himself as even less fortunate. Has he really forgotten why they fought for Sokovia. “I’ve been an adult since I was ten. I took care of Wanda. We’ve been through enough shit to be here. Excuse me, Barton, but I have to train.” He turns on his heel, and launches back onto the track. 

Clint doesn’t stay long. He watches Pietro run sixty laps, sighs, then leaves.

Beyond that afternoon, Clint doesn’t nudge him much more. He does come back to the facility, though, often when Pietro is there. He runs, and he tumbles, and lifts, and he always, always watches Pietro. It’s unsettling, but when he confronts Wanda about it, she all but shrugs.

“He’s a strange man,” is all she says.

Pietro tries to let it go, but he can’t stop thinking about what Clint had said. Before you decided to get stupid. He doesn’t know what that meant, and he’s too afraid to ask. He hadn’t spent much time beside Clint. Of course, he doesn’t remember much of the battle in Sokovia. Maybe he’s missing something important with Clint. 

Either way, tempting him seems like a terrible idea, and Pietro decides he will keep training in silence, refusing to acknowledge Clint’s obvious stare.

_

When Pietro isn’t training, Wanda is dragging him around, urging him to be social and get to know the other members of their team. “We can’t be a team if we don’t even know each other,” she presses, and he groans, but goes with her.

Stark likes parties, this much Pietro knows. He throws them frequently, and sometimes the music is so loud on the the top floor, that Pietro can hear it in his bed. He avoids them for as long as he can, but eventually, Wanda wears him down.

“Even Steve is going,” she whines, but he’s already slipping into a nice shirt.

“And Thor?” he teases. “Is Thor in the realm?”

“No, but he left his liquor for us,” she says with a grin.

“Stark, Rogers, and you,” Pietro counts on his fingers. “Why is it prudent for me to go? I know Stark, and I know Rogers. Stark is smarmy, but he gave me this home. Rogers is the boss, and we are friends.”

“Both Sam Wilson and James Rhodes will be there too, and - and Vision,” she adds, her voice taking on a curious tone.

“Sam is nice. He runs with me and Rogers. He paid me once to lap Rogers and continually tell him ‘on your left.’ I didn’t accept the money when I found out how much it bothered Rogers.”

He snickers, and Wanda laughs.

“I don’t think you’ve met James. You will like him. He’s Tony’s best friend, but he is as annoyed with him as we are, and he’s not afraid to voice it. Oh - and you’ll meet Pepper, Tony’s girlfriend. She hangs out with me and Nat sometimes. She’s very funny.”

She takes his hand as she continues to talk and pulls him along to the elevator. She tells him about a day when he was under, where Nat and Pepper took her to the spa to make her feel better, and afterwards they went to a bar and Pepper got very drunk.

The volume of the party increases until it practically explodes behind the elevator doors. When they open, Pietro is thrust into a hurricane of dancing and alcohol. Wanda grabs him by the wrist and pulls him inside.

Immediately, people are coming up to them, but nobody that Pietro knows. Apparently, his sister is very popular. She says hi to several people, laughing and smiling and introducing her brother to every one of them. There’s Hannah, and Carol, and Lucy, and Jess, and five others Pietro doesn’t catch until they finally come to someone he knows. Rogers is in a corner, drinking with Sam and talking in low voices.

“Hello, Steve!” Wanda says cheerfully.

He looks up, and his face brightens when he sees them. “You finally got your brother off your floor, huh, Wanda?”

“It was a battle,” she laughs.

“It’s good to see you, Pietro,” Rogers says with a nod. “Off the track, that is.”

“What’s up, Speedy Gonzalez?” Sam asks.

Pietro looks around, trying to take everything in. “I am very … overwhelmed.”

Sam laughs. “Didn’t party much in Sokovia?”

Pietro shakes his head, “Not like this.”

Parties in Sokovia were bittersweet, filled with scarred teenagers who wanted nothing but to forget what was happening outside the filthy basement. Drugs were passed around like oxygen, to the fresh breath-starved partygoers. He used to drink until he ached, and smoked until his lungs were thick with it.

This, the party on the top of Stark’s tower, is full of celebration. For the victory of the Avengers, for the success of Stark’s ever-growing company, for the happy lives of the people under the lights. Pietro hasn’t ever been to a party like this.

“Pietro?”

He looks up, shakes himself of the memories to find that his sister is calling his name.

“Yes?”

“Would you like a drink?” Wanda asks, in her hand a bottle of Asgardian liquor.

“Uh - uh, yes,” he stammers. People drink for fun, he reminds himself. It’s a social practice here. And Wanda keeps telling him he needs to be social. Wanda pours him a glass, and he accepts. His hand is starting to vibrate as he brings it up to his lips, but the gulp of alcohol calms him.

Rogers pulls up two chairs for them, and Pietro hurriedly sits down. The anxiety in his veins is starting to lessen, but he would still like a solid place to sit. 

“So, Pietro?” Sam starts. “What - what exactly do you do outside of running?” He chuckles against the rim of his glass. It seems he’s already rather tipsy.

“I … read,” Pietro says, and it comes out almost unsure.

Sam nods, holding back a smirk. “Mmm, read what? Adult magazines?”

Pietro blushes, and he rubs at his neck. “No - no - I’m - I enjoy history. And philosophy.”

Both Sam and Rogers raise an eyebrow.

“Nobody expects you to have a brain, Pietro,” Wanda laughs.

Pietro rolls his eyes. “I’ve found that I can read a lot faster now, and I’ve enjoyed collecting books to speed read.”

“I do a lot of reading too,” Rogers admits. “History, because I missed it.” He laughs, and Pietro smiles.

“That would make sense.”

Pietro looks over to nudge his sister, but finds that she’s disappeared. “Wanda - ?” He looks up to the crowd, searching. 

“Over there,” Sam says, nodding off to their left. “With Vision, of course.”

Pietro follows his gaze and finds her. Drink in hand and her other arm draped over Vision’s shoulder. He’s cleaned up nicely, dressed in slacks and a white shirt, though Pietro can’t tell if they’re real clothes or products of his technology. Something else about the picture seems off, and it takes a minute to realize it’s Wanda’s smile. It’s all wide and dopey, and her eyes are warm as she stares up at him.

“They - they seem rather friendly,” Pietro mutters, and suddenly Wanda’s jeweled red dress seems far too revealing, the sweetheart neckline showing off way too much cleavage.

Sam snickers. “Uh - Pietro - “

He’s cut off by Rogers hissing at him.

“Come on, Steve. They’re not hiding anything, and if she hasn’t said anything yet, she probably just assumes he knows.”

“Know what?” Pietro asks. He’s starting to feel more uncomfortable by the second. He feels hot around the neck, and there’s an odd feeling of rage stirring in his stomach.

“Nothing - “ Rogers starts.

“Your sister and Vision are dating.”

Pietro stiffens. And then blinks. He feels like a bomb the second before an explosion. “The robot? She’s dating the robot?”

Sam howls with laughter, and Steve is hardly able to control himself. Pietro doesn’t think anything about this is very funny. “Technically, he’s an android,” Steve offers.

“He’s not human,” Pietro deadpans.

“He’s half human.”

Pietro stares at both of them, each trying to hold in their laughter, for a long second. With an irritated huff he turns his gaze from them and throws back his drink. A lot of stuff changed while he was under, but it’s never felt as prominent as it does now.

It’s not like Wanda never dated when they were teenagers, of course she did, but Pietro remained constant. He met the boyfriends, gave his blessing, gave her advice, everything an older brother is supposed to do. But now he watches Wanda, so full of this newfound confidence, and she doesn’t need him at all. She’s got Vision wrapped around her finger, and Pietro, though she was the one who begged him to come to this party, is completely forgotten.

Pietro peers at the liquor in his drink. Thank heavens it’s strong, He sees now that it’s probably a good night to get outrageously drunk.

 

_

It’s either the drinking, or the anxiety, or a nasty combination of the two. After Pietro drags himself back to his room and promptly passes out in bed, he’s thrust into a nightmare. 

It starts out misleading. He’s running, just running. Barely a jog at one hundred miles per hour. It’s pretty peaceful. Smooth, soothing, therapeutic. Then he takes off. He’s going faster, faster, faster, until the world freezes around him. He stops running, but his cells are still moving at such an incredible pace that nothing’s changed. He’s vibrating at the speed of sound. Panic rises in his veins, and he looks around himself desperately. He can’t be stuck. He can’t.

Something strikes him, and then he’s on the ground. The world is moving again, but dreadfully slow. There are figures over him, looking down and shouting. He can’t hear them. He tries to move, and then he feels the burst of pain. In a second, his entire body is on fire. It engulfs him, licking every inch of his skin.

And then, as soon as the heat starts, it stops. Coolness replace it. Now he’s drowning, the water coming from inside himself. He turns his head to look, and he sees that it’s not water, it’s blood.  
He screams and screams and screams until everything is gone, and he’s upright in bed, covered in cold sweat, and shaking uncontrollably. It’s not until the lights blur outside his window that he realizes he’s vibrating.

A shot of panic makes it worse, but only for a second. As soon as he tastes the adrenaline, he closes his eyes and breathes. That’s all he does; just breathes. Within minutes, he’s still again. He lies back down carefully, but he doesn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

_

The Asgardian liquor is a lot stronger than Pietro would have guessed. When he wakes up, he has a wicked hangover. The clock on his nightstand tells him he’s slept until noon, and even though that’s six hours later than he usually gets up, he would be very okay with going back to sleep and never seeing the light of today. Unfortunately, they have team practice today, and Pietro can’t miss that. If he tries, Cap will likely drag Pietro out of bed himself.

He heads to the bathroom, still half asleep and sporting a killer headache, and barely keeps his piss in the toilet. When he’s finished, he makes to go out to the kitchen to make coffee, but is stopped when he hears a man’s voice coming from that direction.

“I don’t suppose you want to go out for lunch, by chance? It’s been awhile since we’ve had a nice, casual date.”

It takes Pietro about two words to recognize Vision, and with a start, he realizes Vision must have spent the night with Wanda. The thought makes him puke in his mouth.

“Did you forget?” Wanda replies. “I have an appointment.”

“Appointment?”

“With Doctor Garner.”

“Right, right - how is that going, by the way? Do you find therapy useful?”

Pietro doesn’t hear Wanda’s answer; he’s too stuck on the idea of Wanda in therapy at all. Sure, their childhood was traumatic, but they got through it together, with everyone else in Sokovia. It was their norm, and if they can live through a battle with the Avengers, then surely their past wouldn’t be significant enough to be hurting Wanda now. In every case, she’s always been stronger than Pietro.

Head aching a touch more, Pietro backs up from the door. Maybe he’ll just get dressed and give the two of them time to fall into less intimate conversation before he interrupts them.

By the time Pietro is actually finished getting ready (and he takes it slow, so painfully slow), they’ve left. Wanda off to her appointment, and Vision who knows where. Pietro makes coffee for himself and drinks it in silence. It does little for his headache, and even less for the tight feeling in his chest.

Around every corner, he knows the people around him less and less.

What the hell did he miss while he was under?

Pietro doesn’t see Wanda until their team practice, where they spar together and joke around like nothing is wrong. Pietro’s smile never really reaches his ears, and if Wanda notices, she pretends not to. They listen to Steve rattle off the current state of the field, and then they’re sent of, back to their floor.

Pietro coughs in the elevator, but he can’t bring himself to take it anywhere. Wanda doesn’t even glance at him.

It’s not until Wanda announces she’s going to bed that Pietro addresses what’s been nagging at him all day.

“Wanda?”

She turns. “Yes, Pietro?”

“I - well, this morning, when I woke up, I couldn’t help but overhear some of your conversation with Vision.”

Wanda blushes deeply. “What part?”

Pietro elects to ignore her embarrassment, deciding he doesn’t want to know what she’s thinking about. Instead, he focuses on not backing down from what he wants to know.

“You - you had an appointment today,” he says. “With a therapist?”

Wanda bristles. She doesn’t seem angry, just surprised and slightly disturbed. “Oh, I - well, yes - he’s a psychologist, actually. I’ve been seeing him for awhile.”

Pietro blinks. There’s something stuck in his throat; it feels oddly like his heart. “Why?” is all he can get out.

Wanda fidgets with her hands. “Well, after the battle, Steve - Steve was worried about me.”

Pietro takes a step toward her. None of this is making sense, and he is suddenly very, very worried. “Wanda? What’s going on?”

“Nothing - I’m fine. Steve just - Steve wanted to make sure I didn’t get worse, and I didn’t - I wouldn’t hurt myself or anything.”

“Hurt yourself?” Pietro says, alarmed. Since recovering, the ground has felt shaky underneath his feet, but now it’s completely fallen out from underneath him. He closes the space between them and rests his hand where where her neck meets her shoulder. “Wanda, what - ?”

“I’m fine,” Wanda protests. “The appointments have been going very well, and the team is very supportive. I’m okay, Pietro.”

“But you weren’t,” he presses. “What happened, Wanda?”

She sighs heavily and grabs his wrist. “Look, Pietro - it - it was very hard to see you like that after the battle.” She closes her eyes and swallows hard. “It - it felt like I died - I - “ She cuts off and presses her lips together.

“But I made it, Wanda,” Pietro all but whispers. “I’m here.”

When Wanda opens her eyes again, they’re filled with tears. “I didn’t know if you would, Pietro. I couldn’t - I couldn’t have gone on.”

“Wanda . . . “

He pulls her against him and hugs her tight. When she reaches back, he can see it all again - the demolished apartment, the two of them curled under the bed; hiding out in an alleyway, terrified of the strangers that walk past them; pressed against the cages that Hydra put them in, reaching through the bars to hold each other’s hands. He realizes now that while he was under, that was the longest they’d ever been apart.

_

From then on, Pietro keeps a closer eye on Wanda. He tries to be subtle about it, but he knows he’s failing. It doesn’t seem to bother her, however, and Pietro is grateful. She can’t honestly expect him to do otherwise, can she?

In addition, he tries to spend more time with her. He knows he’s been weird and isolated since he recovered. He’s spent far too much time in the training center, and not enough time taking care of his sister. But knowing that Wanda could be in potential danger, especially from herself - he has to pull it together. Who knows what could happen? Her powers are clearly linked to her emotions and her mental state. He doesn’t want to risk anything.

He spends so much effort making sure that Wanda is okay, that he doesn’t realize he’s slipping through the cracks himself.

It all comes to fruition during another team training. Pietro has been accustomed to his usual drill of dodging weaponry. He’s overconfident, arrogant, even, and he isn’t paying enough attention. Romanoff nails him with a dart gun, and he goes down hard.

Phantoms of intense pain take over his body, and he feels panic fill up his throat. He can’t breathe, he can’t move, he can’t even think. All he can do is fester in the fear.

People are standing over him, saying his name, asking what’s wrong, but he can’t make any sound come out of his mouth. A hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and his first instinct is to bat it away, but as soon as fingers dig into his skin, he starts to feel calmer. The panic slowly dies away, and he looks up to see Wanda staring down at him, shaking with worry.

“How - how did you do that?” he asks.

Wanda shrugs. “I can show everyone their worst fear. I thought maybe I could take yours away.”

Pietro takes a deep breath. “Whatever you did, it worked.”

“Pietro?” Rogers asks. “You okay?”

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Romanoff asks.

Pietro shakes his head. “No, I’m not - I’m not hurt. I don’t know what happened.”

“Panic attack,” Sam says immediately. “That’s what happened. You had a panic attack.”

Romanoff whirls around to meet Sam’s eye. “Why?” she asks. Both Rogers and Sam give her dangerous looks. Her eyes widen, and she understands, but Pietro doesn’t. This silent conversation has gone over his head.

“What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

Rogers clears his throat. “Nothing,” he says. He offers a hand to Pietro. “Now come on, training’s over.”

Pietro helps himself up. He opens his mouth to speak again, to ask what the hell everyone is apparently communicating telepathically about, but Rogers interrupts him, begins talking about field updates. Pietro presses his lips together and keeps his sigh inside.

Over the next week, no one tries to explain themselves, and whenever Pietro brings it up, they immediately change the subject. He would have gotten angry with them awhile ago, but Wanda does it too, and if Wanda isn’t willing to talk to him about it, he’s too afraid to push it.

Eventually, it all dies away. That is, until the first official mission of the full New Avengers comes.

Pietro expects to suit up, to lace up shoes and finally join the ranks, but when Rogers announces the list of responsibilities, his name doesn’t come up. He continues on, going into further detail about how exactly the procedure will go. It’s an extraction, a stealth mission. They’re attempting to uncover information from Hydra. There is security involved and time constraints, and everything is far too complicated. Pietro could easily get in and out if someone covered him, and he doesn’t understand why that isn’t the plan, or why he isn’t involved at all actually.

“Ex - excuse me?” he speaks up, and Rogers reluctantly lifts his head to look at him. “Why the hell aren’t we using me for this? Why aren’t I even a part of the team?”

Everyone stiffens around him, and Rogers sighs. “You’re not ready yet, Pietro. I looked at your last medical files, and you’re still too vulnerable.”

“That is bullshit,” Pietro says bluntly. He knows it. Everyone knows it. Pietro is just fine, and he is the perfect one for this mission.

“Pietro, listen - “ Rogers starts.

“No,” he says flatly. “You listen. I am not fragile. I am fine, and I can do this.”

“Pietro,” Wanda says quietly. “You had a panic attack in training a week ago. What will happen in the field?”

There’s a sudden lump in his throat and he swallows hard. “You - you can’t hold that against me. It was one time. One. I am tired of sitting on the sidelines.”

“Pietro, this is Fury’s call, not mine,” Rogers says. “If you have a complaint, take it up with him.”

Pietro goes silent. He doesn’t like that idea, and he will probably sit back and hold his tongue rather than talking to Fury. He crosses his arms and huffs, looking around at everyone with a sour face. However, when he see the look in everyone’s eyes, he freezes. The anger dissolves, and he feels almost guilty. Wanda isn’t the only one still worried, still stuck on his debilitating panic attack.

Maybe they’re right on this one. Maybe Pietro should give himself more time before he throws himself back out there.

After the meeting, Rogers finds him in the locker room. Everyone else is preparing for the mission, but Pietro is sitting on the bench, staring at the floor and wondering what he’ll do with himself while his entire team is away.

“Pietro,” Rogers says, soft.

He looks up. “Yes, Captain Rogers?”

He smiles. “You can call me ‘Steve’, you know. Your sister does.”

Pietro shrugs. “She’s closer to you.”

Rogers nods. “That’s fair.” He crosses the room slowly, and then takes a seat on the bench next to Pietro. “I just - I wanted to talk to you?”

Pietro purses his lips. “Do you think I’m fragile?”

“No,” Rogers says, a little too quickly. “No, look - I just - I’m concerned. I want to know that you’re okay, Pietro. Tony has had panic attacks in the field, and it’s been very dangerous. That’s why he’s taking time off.”

“Good for him,” Pietro says, a little bitter. He doesn’t want time off. He wants to run. He wants to work. He wants to stay by his sister’s side and save the world like Hydra told them they were going to. It was hard realization to find out that Ultron was using them to destroy the world, but now they have their chance and Pietro can’t even take it.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Rogers asks.

“Put me in the field.”

Rogers shakes his head. “I meant about the panic attacks. You have to be stable before you enter the field.”

Pietro sighs heavily again. “No offense, Captain, but you are a terrible listener. I’ve told you - I’m fine. It was an isolated incident. I haven’t had a panic attack like that before. Not even in Sokovia. I’m made of strong stuff.”

Rogers frowns. “I don’t want to take any chances, Pietro. That’s why I sent your sister to Garner.” He gets up without another word, and before Pietro can come up with a reply, is out the door.

Pietro stares at the doorway Rogers’ disappeared through, thoroughly unsettled. It’s been a long time since someone other than Wanda give a shit about him, especially when it came to his emotions. Cap might just be a good guy, but he doesn’t speak for everyone. Something feels off, and Pietro isn’t excited to find out why.  
_

So he stays back. He lets his sister leave with the rest of the team, and he stays back. He trains and trains and trains, and when he’s not training or stuffing his body with insane amounts of food, he’s sitting as still as possible, tampering with his mind.

Something is wrong. Something is clearly missing, and it’s screwing with him. He doesn’t like this, doesn’t like the way the uneasiness crawls under his skin when people look at him like they do, with those wide eyes and upturned eyebrows. There is so much under the rug that he can’t pull out and it’s going to drive him insane.

He lies in bed, his hands folded over his stomach, and he closes his eyes. He probes his brain for anything, any piece of imagery from the battle, any forgotten whisper when the others are having conversations as they glance at him, anything. He lies there minutes, for hours, but nothing ever comes.

When the team returns, Pietro tries to pay extra close attention to any lowering of voice, any coded phrase for him to decipher, but it’s like they all took a vow of silence while they were gone. He can’t get anything from them. He gets so fed up that even thinks about prodding Wanda, but then he remembers that she’s seeing a psychologist, and he’s too afraid to risk it when she’s still so broken up. And that drives him even crazier. He should be able to help his sister, and he doesn’t even know what the hell is going to make her so upset. It’s an awful cycle.

And yet, just when Pietro feels himself giving up hope, he makes a small amount of progress.

His nightmare from weeks ago makes a return, but this time, there’s a clear reason for the pain, the fire, and the blood.

He’s on the ground again, and he would be writhing in pain if he could move. Instead, he’s paralyzed, frozen with it, and the fire licks him up until the blood comes. A river of red runs around him, and when he looks down at himself, he sees it. He sees the culprit clear as day, and it makes him shiver.

A bullet hole. No - two bullet holes - no, three - no - 

Pietro’s eyes fly open, and he’s left panting between the sheets, once again covered in sweat and unable to breathe. He swallows hard and rubs an angry hand across his face.

Fuck.

Cap told him he got caught in the crossfire, but he didn’t imagine it like this.

No wonder Wanda’s a wreck.

_

When Pietro wakes up again in the morning, it takes him a second to remember the nightmare. He feels his chest and down his abdomen to make sure. There’s no wetness, no sign of blood, and he breathes a small sigh of relief.

He gets up, takes a shower, and while he’s under the water, begins to second guess himself. How does he know that his nightmare isn’t a memory, but just a nightmare? How does he know that he suffered multiple bullet wounds? How does he know his injuries were bullet wounds in the first place? Maybe he broke his neck, severed a vertebrate? Maybe it was a combination of all three.

The truth is he doesn’t know. Cap didn’t tell him the details, and maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know. If everyone else is so worried about him, Pietro doesn’t really need the solid evidence to increase his own self-doubt.

While he’s dressing, Pietro decides just to worry about the future. He’s healed. The battle is over, and all he needs to do is train for future battles. That’s what will keep him safe and everyone else sane.

Optimistic for once in his life, Pietro heads across the hall to knock on his sister’s door. They haven’t trained much together, and he needs someone to help him lift. It would be a good opportunity to test each other’s strengths.

But once again, Pietro finds himself stuck eavesdropping on his sister and Vision. He turns, intending to go back to his room and wait until they’re done, but then he realizes Wanda’s crying, and immediately goes into big brother mode. He takes a step closer to their voices, and listens carefully.

“I’m sorry - I’m sorry,” Wanda is saying through her tears. “It was a just a dream. You’re busy, I - I can get through on my own.” A chair screeches against the tile floors.

“Wanda,” Vision says disapprovingly. “It’s fine. Tony doesn’t need me right this moment. Talk to me.”

Wanda gives a sob. “I just - this is so stupid, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Wanda. I’m here.”

“Okay,” she says, and then takes a huge breath. “I just - I dreamt that you didn’t save me, that you didn’t take me off the island.” She sniffles. “And I - I didn’t regret it.” She dissolves into sobs, but they’re quickly muffled by what is likely Vision hugging her.

Pietro doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but it still kills him on the inside, to know that she was once in danger, and she wanted it. He wonders if something happened on their mission, something she didn’t tell him about when she got back. He doesn’t like the thought of that. He’s her brother, and he’s always kept her from danger. He bites his lip, hard. If he doesn’t get on the field soon, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

_

Things slow down for awhile. No full-team missions come up. Occasionally, Rog - Steve, or Nat or ‘Rhodey’ as it turns out people call him, is sent off on solo or partner or maybe even threesome missions, but Wanda isn’t ever needed, and Pietro is glad.

Without missions, they participate in more team-bonding time. The have extra training sessions where they’re allowed to goof off, and Tony throws a couple parties. And when they can’t have the big, classy parties, Sam invites people over to his place for drinks and board games. Pietro really comes to enjoy Team Game Night.

Tonight, they’re playing Trivial Pursuit, and frankly, Steve is killing it for a man who missed seventy years. Pietro is on his team, and he takes a shot for every pie they get in addition to his Asgardian N’ Coke. So far they have three, and Pietro is delightfully drunk

Being a history buff, he’s been pulling a pretty significant weight on the team, and Sam gives his shoulders a shake every time he gets a correct answer.

“Alright, alright, Pietro,” Wanda says, reading off the card. “Who gave his name to the month of July?”

Pietro scoffs. “Easy. Julius Caesar.”

Wanda flips over the card. “Correct.”

Sam howls in his ear and slaps his back several times. “That’s another pie!” He hands Pietro a shot, and Pietro tosses it back.

The rest of the game is just as eventful, and by the time they’re finished, Pietro is really starting to feel the win. He’s fairly unsteady on his feet, and he’s much, much slower than usual. He pushes himself off the couch with a grimace, and it’s then that he notices the shooting pain in his head. A hand comes up to his temple, and he sucks in air through his teeth.

Wanda takes notice immediately. “Pietro? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he grunts. “Just a headache.”

Wanda grabs him by the shoulder and gently pulls him toward her. “Here, let me help.” She holds a hand against the side of his face and closes her eyes. A tendril of red wraps itself around her wrist, and Pietro braces himself. After a second she pulls away, and Pietro is surprised. 

“Anything?” she asks.

“No,” Pietro sighs. 

Wanda frowns.

“It’s fine,” he presses. “I’ll just take some Ibuprofen.” 

He heads to the kitchen and pours himself a handful, but after awhile, he realizes it’s not going to help. His head is truly pounding, and it looks like he’ll have to call it night, even though it’s barely ten.

“I’m - I’m going home, guys,” he announces, and Wanda is up in a second. “Stay,” he says. “I can get myself home.”

She looks back at Vision. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Nat looks at him curiously. “You okay, Pietro?”

He shrugs. “I’m not feeling very well,” he admits. “I think I should go to bed.”

Everyone nods and gives him well wishes. He gives a final wave and heads out the door. His bed is more than inviting when he arrives back in Stark Tower, and through all the pain, he manages to fall asleep rather quickly. In the morning, he wakes up feeling refreshed.

And then it all goes to shit.

For at least a week straight, Pietro dissolves into horrible, throbbing and gut-wrenching headaches. He pushes pill after pill after pill, but they don’t do much. All he can do is sleep it off and wake up the next day to do it all over again.

By the seventh day, he expects to wake up with a headache, but he’s surprised to find that he’s pain-free all day. They seem to let up, and he’s grateful. He’s never dealt with chronic headaches, or any kind of chronic pain, really. It particularly messes him up that with the speed, he also gained a new pain tolerance. If these headaches are strong enough to make him feel like death, that’s more than a little terrifying.

And then, just like that, he’s okay. They fade away, and Pietro is back to himself, back to training hard and eating a ton, and getting much less sleep than he probably needs, but he feels great. For weeks, his head doesn’t give him an ounce of trouble.

His body betrays him quick enough, though, and right in the middle of training.

He’s doing dodge work with Wanda. She shoots high-paced flares of magic at him, and he has to jump out of the way or suffer a nasty, magical welt. She promises she’s going easy on him with the painful effects, but he isn’t so sure. He enjoys it anyway, excited at seeing the mischievous side of his sister.

He misses spark after spark, grinning wickedly at Wanda. She smirks right back, really getting into the swing of her magic. She sways and twists, and her hands move so rapidly that even to Pietro they become a blur. But he’s still focused, and he doesn’t miss a beat. He laughs, and immediately receives payback.

He thinks it’s Wanda at first, messing with him. Maybe he got hit, but he feels no pain. All he knows is that his body is slowing down. He tries to move it faster, but it refuses. He’s not tired, not feeling any burn, nothing. He’s just slowing down.

He manages to dodge another magic flare, but once it passes him, he’s gone.

He sees himself among the rubble, the city smoking overhead. His legs won’t move, no matter how hard he tries to get them to. He can feel the fear bubbling in his veins, and his breath starts to come faster and faster. He’s panicking again, and there’s nothing he can do. He drops to the ground, and the fire comes again.

“Pietro? Pietro?”

He looks up, sees his sister, and then a stab of pain goes through his head.

“Shit,” he hisses, and immediately shoves his face into his hands. The pain is unbearable; he feels like his head is about to explode.

“Pietro, what is it?”

“Move aside, Wanda. We’re going to take him to medical.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good. Come on, Sam - help me.”

Strong arms work their way underneath him, and Pietro lets himself slip away.

_

When Pietro wakes up, he’s in the hospital again. There’s an IV in his hand and a horrible, horrible taste in his mouth. His body is exhausted, and he almost passes out again just trying to sit up.

“Hey, hey, hey - easy, easy.”

Clint stands over him and gently nudges his shoulder back, pushing him back against his pillows.

Pietro groans. “What happened to me?”

“Uh - Doc says it was a migraine,” Clint says, rubbing his neck. “A pretty severe one.”

Pietro would agree; he can still feel some of the aftershocks of pain, throbbing at the base of his skull. His stomach is uneasy, and he guesses the awful taste in his mouth is probably from vomit he doesn’t remember puking up. His eyes ache and burn, indicating that he probably has a fever.

“Where’s Wanda?” he rasps.

“Relax, man. She just went to the bathroom. She’ll be back.”

Pietro intends to stay awake to talk to her, but the painkillers they must have him on pull him back under.

When he wakes again, he is severely groggy. He doesn’t feel the headache anymore, but his eyes are so heavy and gritty that he can’t pull them open. He wants to move but his limbs feel like lead. So instead, he just lies there, consciousness falling in and out, hearing following the same path like a siren. 

Only some things make it through - the dull roar of machines, the chipper beep of the heart monitor, low voices speaking across the room.

“Wanda, come on?”

“I can’t leave.”

“Wanda, Steve has called the New Avengers in the conference room down the hall. This concerns you.”

“My brother is unwell. That’s what concerns me.”

“Alright, fine. But you know Steve’s going to come down here and forcibly drag you there.”

Wanda huffs. “Can none of you see that my brother needs me right now?”

“He’s fine, Wanda. It’s just a headache.”

“It’s not. He’s unraveling, and we all know it.”

“ . . You’re right, and that’s why Steve called us to order. So get your ass down there. Pietro’s out, and he’ll be here when you get back.”

There’s a long pause. “Fine.”

Pietro dips into unconsciousness once again, but when he wakes up next, it’s for good. His eyes all but snap open. He spends about three seconds recounting what he heard while he was half-asleep, and then he’s on his feet. He rips the IV from his hand and creeps out of his room. With a carefully placed dash, he’s down the hall and outside the aforementioned conference room, straining his ears to hear what his team has to say.

“Fury warned us,” Clint is saying. “It was a risky move. We’re going to have to face the consequences some time.”

“Fury also said he wouldn’t remember anything,” Natasha drawls. “We aren’t prepared for this.”

“Look,” Sam says, hushed. “He doesn’t remember. If he remembered, we’d know.”

“I’m only asking about today,” Steve interjects. “Do we do something about it today?”

“No,” is the unanimous agreement. 

“Good. Then, dismissed.”

Chairs scrape against the floor, and Pietro takes that as his cue to get the fuck out of there. He hauls ass back to his room and jumps into bed. He elects not to try and restore his IV, but draws it close to him anyway. He’s got an excuse.

He doesn’t even have time to digest the incredibly unhelpful information, or lack thereof, because Wanda enters his room within seconds after he’s settled back under the blanket. He does his best to look sleepy and barely functional.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she says, surprised.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Um - could you get a nurse?”

“What’s wrong?” Wanda asks, crossing the room in a hurry.

“Nothing, I just - I must’ve pulled my IV out in my sleep,” he says, and shows her.

“Oh,” she says, obviously relieved. She leans down and kisses him gently on the forehead. “I’ll call for someone. Do you need anything else?”

Besides knowing what the hell is going on?, he thinks. “No.”

“Alright.” She smiles. “I’ll be right back.” And she’s out the door, headed for the receptionist’s desk.

Pietro rolls over onto his side with a heavy sigh. When the nurse comes back, he’ll tell her he’s still in pain and wishes to sleep, because if he’s out, at least he’s not drowning in the anxiety over missing memories, and apparently, dead important ones at that. Ones that have his whole team in a fuss, refusing to tell him anything of what happened. If he can’t know, then he doesn’t to be awake or aware to wonder.

_

Pietro is released the next morning, and his sister accompanies him back to Stark Tower. He feels just fine physically, but mentally, he’s a mess. When he came out of the coma, he really didn’t care that some of his memories were missing, but after hearing what his team said, he is itching for them back. He doesn’t like not knowing what happened to him, and it’s really starting to irk him that nobody will help him out. He feels ready to crawl out of his skin.

In the elevator, just like before, Pietro clears his throat. This time however, he doesn’t wait for Wanda to acknowledge him. He just blurts it out.

“What happened to me in Sokovia?”

Slowly, Wanda looks over at him. “What?” she asks, but the look in her eyes tells him she knows exactly what he means.

“What happened to me that put me in a coma?” he presses. He knows Wanda has trouble with it, and maybe she’s not the best person to ask, but she’s also probably the only person that would tell him when nobody else will.

“Pietro,” she starts, voice a cracking whisper. “I can’t - I can’t tell you.”

That response only makes his heart beat faster and he steps closer to his sister, staring down into her eyes. “Yes, you can. Wanda, please. It’s driving me crazy that I don’t know.”

“Steve - Steve told you,” she splutters. There are tears pooling in her eyes, but Pietro forces himself to ignore them. “You were caught under gunfire. You - You sustained life-threatening injuries.”

“That’s not the whole truth,” Pietro argues. “There’s something else, and I see what it does to all of you when you remember it. It’s killing me, Wanda. Just tell me.”

“N - no - “ she says quietly. “I can’t.”

“Wanda,” he pleads.

“Pietro, I can’t,” she says, firmer.

“Wanda,” he says again, angry, and he reaches his hand out to grab her shoulders.

She responds with a flash of red, a blaze of magic, and he yanks his hands back with a scream. He can feel the electricity surge through his body, throwing him to the ground, and then he’s panting, left weak and unstable.

“Wanda,” he gasps out. “What the hell - ?”

“You can’t make me talk about it,” she hisses, full-on crying. She storms away, leaving him on the floor, heaving and wheezing as his body rejects her magic.

_

Unsurprisingly, Pietro has another nightmare that night.

Except this time, he sees the bullets before they hit him. It happens in slow motion. One after the other after the other after the other. His shoulder, his back, his calf, his upper arm. They pierce him like flames, and then the river of blood comes gushing out. He’s like a fountain of red, standing tall and beautiful before he collapses to the ground.

When he wakes up, he’s not even shaky. He’s full of adrenaline, heart racing and feet itching to run. It’s like Wanda striking him again, veins filling with electricity. He can’t hold it in anymore. He can’t let his brain win.

He spends the rest of the night coming up with a plan to find out what the hell happened. He doesn’t sleep a wink, but in the morning, he’s still ready to go, full of energy and ambition. He gets dressed, brushes his teeth, eats breakfast, and goes for his daily run. However, instead of returning to his apartment, he heads to Stark’s lab.

Lying in bed the previous night, he told himself that the information on his injuries had to be housed somewhere. There are medical files, field report files for SHIELD, team files for the Avengers. He went through location after location, wondering where the hell he could start before he reached the obvious: Stark was taking a break from the field, but that didn’t mean he still wasn’t resident tech genius who held the key to all of SHIELD and the Avengers’ files. And with the Tower being his new main location, there had to be a way for Pietro to get his hands on it.

So here he is, stepping into Tony Stark’s lab, and it’s a lot more complicated than he imagined. He stands there, dumbfounded for a moment before a voice speaks overhead.

“Hello, Mr. Maximoff. Is there anything I can help you with?”

He about jumps out of his skin before he recognizes V.E.R.O.N.I.C.A., their new resident AI. Most everyone else talks to her, uses her to navigate Stark’s high-tech residence. She’s always freaked Pietro out, but he figures now is as a good a chance as ever to get to know her.

“H - hi, Veronica,” he tries.

“Hi, Mr. Maximoff.”

“I - could I get your help with something?” he asks quietly.

“Of course, Mr. Maximoff. What do you need?”

Could it really be this easy?, Pietro wonders. “I would like to take a look at my file. My personal file, you know? That must be filled with my HYDRA experimentations and duties on the Avengers.”

“Right here, Mr. Maximoff.”

A screen settles in the air in front of him, and promptly lights up with text. There’s a picture of him plastered next to his basic information:

PIETRO MAXIMOFF  
aka QUICKSILVER

species: super-human  
abilities: super speed; acceleration of internal and external atoms/molecules; enhanced durability, strength, agility, and stamina  
affiliation: formerly HYDRA, currently New Avengers and SHIELD  
base of operations: Avengers Tower  
place of birth: Sokovia  
citizenship: Sokovian  
relatives: twin brother to Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch  
gender: male  
weight: 180 lbs  
height: 6’0”  
eyes: blue  
hair: white

He clicks the button that reads “MORE >”, but the following page doesn’t give him much more information. There are the in depth recordings of HYDRA’s experiments, as well as news reports of all the Sokovian disasters he was victim of, the death certificates of his parents, and foster care information. There is nothing whatsoever on him post-battle other than the fact that he along with his sister, Sam, Rhodey, and Vision joined the New Avengers.

“Veronica?” he asks.

“Yes, Mr. Maximoff.”

“Can you pull up information pertaining to medical records.”

“Of course, Mr. Maximoff. Here you are.”

A new line of text appears in front of his eyes, and he scans it quickly. There are all the childhood illnesses, the vaccinations, the broken bone he got when he was seven, pneumonia when he was nine, the aftermath of the bombings, the yearly physicals taken by Sokovia’s foster care system, that awful flu at the orphanage, more of HYDRA’s experiments and the impact on his health, and then - then it skips right to the migraine. Nothing, absolutely nothing on the battle wounds.

“Uh - Veronica? Something seems to be missing?”

“Yes, Mr. Maximoff?”

“Where is the information on my injuries from the battle against Ultron?”

“You are unauthorized to access that file.”

In a second, Pietro explodes. 

“You’re joking, right? That’s my file, my information? How the hell am I not authorized to view my own file.”

“Agent Fury has requested that file to be sealed.”

“Against me?” Pietro asks disbelievingly. 

“Yes, Mr. Maximoff.”

“What the hell - “

A door slides open behind Pietro. “I knew it.”

He looks, anger quickly replaced with fear, at the person who just entered the room.

“Thank you telling me about the breach, Veronica,” Stark says.

“You’re welcome, sir.”

“Alright, Speedo - what the hell are you doing down here?” Stark asks, crossing his arms.

Pietro stands frozen for a moment, unable to get words out of his mouth.

“Well, what? That head trauma take away your ability to talk?”

Pietro feels his blood rising again, heating inside his veins. “I want to know what happened to me,” he says, quiet, deadly.

“You took a load of bullets - what?” Stark supplies.

“I know you’re keeping something from me,” Pietro challenges. “I deserve to know.”

Stark sighs. “Look, kid - I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and I’m not even going to pretend to care, so - either get out of my lab right now, or I’ll have one of my suits do it for you.”

Pietro narrows his eyes. He wants so badly just to ram into Stark at full speed. “I will find a way, Mr. Stark. I will find a way.” He zips forward, bumping his shoulder against Stark on the way.

“Alright, well - good luck with that,” Tony mutters after him.

Pietro collapses in the elevator and screams all the way back up to his floor.

_

If Pietro thought everyone looked at him weird before, then he doesn’t know how to describe the gazes now. No one ever looks at him straight; it’s always out of the corner of their eyes. It feels like they’re waiting for him to snap, and with that kind of pressure it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that puts him on edge.

His anxiety is at extreme levels, and he turns back to running, to training, to doing anything that will better his powers and keep him distracted. He figures that’s the best way to go. He’s too afraid of Stark to try to sneak back into the lab, and no one is going to tell him anything just yet. He has to wait, has to bide his time, build up his own stability before the others think he’s well enough to be let in on his own secret memories.

It doesn’t always work, especially since his headaches keep coming back. After his stay in the hospital, he was given a super-sized prescription for migraine medication. He’s been taking it regularly, but sometimes they sneak past. And with each day, he feels the pills working less and less. His head is like a time-bomb.

By the time the next New Avengers mission rolls around, Pietro is more than ready to do his share of teamwork. However, once again, his name is not on the role call. He doesn’t waste a second to voice his opinion.

“Cap, this is another heap of bullshit. I need on the team.”

Steve sighs something heavy. “Pietro - “

“No, I am serious. If I am not allowed on the team and on this mission, I will go insane. You do not want that. You want me to keep my mouth shut and not ask the questions you all don’t want to answer? Put me on the team. I need a distraction.”

“Pietro, listen to me - “

“No, you listen to me - “

This argument goes on for probably hours, and by the end of it, every single person has been involved. By the end of it, Steve is fuming, Wanda is rocking back and forth with anxiety, and Pietro is ready to destroy everything in sight. He’s made several good points and compromised on too many things, but as he looks at Steve, he fears that it’s all come to no avail.

However, Steve replies with, “Fine. You can come on this mission, but you better not fuck around. If you feel vulnerable, tell one of us. We can’t risk something like that.”

“You have my word,” Pietro replies, thoroughly surprised.

This mission is another simple one. Another extraction. Stark’s been maintaining the rift with A.I.M., but there seems to be a sudden growth on their end. The idea is this: get Natasha inside with a chip, pull all the information and then destroy everything A.I.M. has. Pietro will be her bodyguard, and ride if need be.

The base is in Montana, deep in the mountains. They take a jet to the summit, and then work their way down on foot. Pietro goes ahead, checks for traps and response teams, then runs back with his information. Their clear until they’re half a mile out, and then it’s time for stealth mode. 

Pietro takes Natasha and his sister. Vision will trail after them, and everyone else will stay back in defense. Once at the door, Wanda disables it with her magic. She fries the technology, and the lock snaps. Nat kicks it in, and they hurry after her. Again, Pietro takes the lead, scoping out each area before they charge ahead. It’s eerily quiet.

They make it to the control center without meeting a single A.I.M employee. It’s far too curious, with Pietro scouting all the halls in seconds, and Wanda using her magic to sense for presence. Still, after triple-checking, there’s nothing.

“Where the hell are they?” Pietro whispers to Wanda as Natasha gets started with the chip.

“I don’t know,” Wanda replies, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her hands are up, wound in red.

They stand like that, still as statues, until Nat is finished. As soon as she hits ‘Enter’ to destroy the hard drives, A.I.M. is on top of them. At least twenty troops with assault rifles, and they loose fire. Wanda is a step ahead of them, and one wave of her hands seems them down. But that doesn’t make a difference to Pietro. When the bullets hit the air, he’s down, head screaming and blood boiling with panic.

He’s back on top of the rubble, eleven bullet wounds in him.

_

When he gets back, Pietro refuses to talk to anyone. He goes to medical, answers only the questions he has to, and lets himself be checked physically, but he won’t tell Wanda anything she wants to hear. He’s too tired, and he’s pissed.

He’s pissed at A.I.M. for giving him a false sense of security and then ripping the ground out from under his feet; he’s pissed at his teammates because they won’t tell him what the fuck happened to him, even when it’s messing so profoundly with his mind; and he’s pissed at himself for collapsing, for failing to do his duties and endangering his sister and Natasha.

Cap corners him when he’s released from medical, but Pietro won’t give him anything.

“How about you come clean, Cap? How about you tell me what I want to know, and leave me the fuck alone until you do?”

He turns on his heel and speeds from the room, out to the SHIELD van where Wanda waits. He lets himself inside, and tells the driver to go. He doesn’t speak the entire ride to the tower, or up the elevator. He doesn’t even say anything before he locks himself in bedroom.

He crawls onto his bed and curls into a ball. His insides are starting to vibrate, so he wraps his arms around his knees and hugs them tightly. If he keeps at it like this, he’s going to have another panic attack. He doesn’t know if he can handle that; another headache is starting to grow behind his eyes.

Pietro really doesn’t know what to do at this point. Everything about his health is tied to the memories nobody will let him have. He can’t train, he can’t fight, and hell, he can’t even mope in his own bedroom without the threat of a panic attack. And not only that, but he can’t shake the awful headaches.

He just wants to catch a break. He wants someone to help him, but nobody will.

The thing that really kills him, though, is that while everything is bound to keep getting worse, he’s going to get punished if it does. They’ll kick him off the team, put him in the hospital, make him stay hooked up to machines again, and he can’t take that. So he has to pretend like everything is normal. He has to put on an act like he’s just fine when this entire ordeal is tearing him apart. He can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t even think because his mind has some kind of barricade against the very thing he needs to help him get better.

Pietro tries anyway. He goes to training, he goes on missions, he eats and runs and takes care of himself. He takes his migraine medication, even when it stops working and he thinks his head might just roll right off his body. He lies and lies and lies his ass off, doing his best to convince everyone that he’s just fine. Oh yes, its completely normal that he jumped at the sound of someone dropping something on the floor. Oh yes, he’s just clutching his head as part of a new yoga pose. Oh yes, he’s just screaming in his sleep because he dreamt someone told him a joke and somehow his laughter got out of control.

He knows Wanda can see right through him, but he’s not letting his guard up for anything.

Right now he’s lounging on the couch, ice pack on his head. He tries to tell Wanda that he tripped during a run in the training center and hit it on a barbell, but she doesn’t buy it for a second.

“It’s a migraine, isn’t it?” Wanda says.

“Yes,” Pietro admits.

“You’ve been taking your medication?” 

“Yes,” he huffs, irritated.

“I’m just checking,” Wanda sighs. She sits down next to him and lays a hand on his forearm. “I think they can get worse with stress.”

Pietro scoffs. “Funny, considering I’m stress-free.”

“Maybe you should talk it out,” Wanda suggests. “I’m here to listen.”

Pietro closes his eyes. It takes all his strength not to chew her out because no, these headaches are definitely not ordinary migraines, nor are they growing worse because of stress. His head aches because his mind is trying to tear itself apart. His memories were taken from him, but the anxiety is doing its damnedest to retrieve them. 

“Wanda,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to talk.”

“You should,” Wanda argues. “I’ve been talking to Steve and Sam, and - “

“Ugh.”

“And - and - with the panic attacks and everything, they think you might have PTSD.”

Pietro can’t help it this time. He just blurts it out. “How can I have PTSD from memories I can’t even remember?”

Wanda bites her lip. “I’m sorry.”

He sighs heavily, defeated. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“It’s protocol,” Wanda says quietly. “I was told you’d be better off if you didn’t know.”

His head gives a violent throb. “I don’t see how it could get worse than this.”

_

That night, Pietro’s nightmares return for the last and final time, because once it’s over, he realizes it’s not a nightmare. It’s a memory.

The island of city is nearly evacuated, but he’s doing final rounds to double-check. And for good reason too, because he sees the little kid, caught under rubble and too afraid to keep going. Barton sees him too, and races to him. Pietro almost turns away, but then he feels the wind from the rotors. Fear makes him hesitate, and that’s what brings his downfall. He pushes forward anyway, despite knowing that he won’t be able to push the kid and Barton out of the way in time. There’s still one thing he can do.

He reaches them just in time, and takes each bullet without so much as a cry. The pain almost blinds him, and he can feel the blood filling his mouth. He coughs, and that’s when Barton looks up at him.

Pietro smiles. “You didn’t see that coming?”

And that’s it. He uses all of his remaining energy on a bit of snark, and then he’s falling. He hits the earth with a thud, and he feels his internal organs collapse with the force of it. All the bullets give him one last pierce before the darkness takes over.

It’s a smooth transition into waking up. His eyes flicker open slowly, and his breathing is surprisingly even. He’s drenched in sweat, however, and he feels like his skin is a million tiny ants crawling across his bones. His mind is going a million miles a minute and he cannot take it anymore.

He jumps out of bed and gets dressed in running clothes. Careful not to wake Wanda up, he makes his way to the training center. They have team training early this morning, but Pietro can’t wait and he has endless steam to blow off.

As it turns out, Clint is right. By the time the rest of the Avengers show up, Pietro has ran a centimeter-thick hole in the track. He doesn’t slow down either. Steve, Sam, and Clint enter, and Pietro just runs faster, letting himself absolve into maniacal laughter. Rhodey and Natasha are next, and then his sister strolls in last with Vision, surprised to see her brother there. Everyone crowds around the edge of the track, staring at him. Abruptly, he skids to a halt in front of Cap.

“I need to know what happened,” he breathes, deadly. “I know I took eleven bullets. I know I passed out. What happened after that? What the hell happened?”

“Pietro - “ he starts, but Pietro isn’t going to beat around the bush.

He turns to Sam, then Clint, then Natasha. “Someone tell me!” he screams. “Someone tell me what the hell happened!”

He’s vibrating, he can feel it, and he’s going to lose his fucking mind.

“I’m not fucking around! Someone needs to tell me right now or I am going to go nuclear. I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take this - I can’t - I - I - can’t - I - “

He can’t see straight. He can’t breathe. He can’t - 

An awful force strikes him upside the head, and then time slows again while his vision goes black.

_

Pietro’s eyes peel open, and he has no idea where he is. Everything is white. It hurts. Everything hurts. He tries to move, just to make sure he’s still intact, and something rattles. Pain shoots up his arm and looks down to find shackles around his wrists, and ankles too. He speeds his limbs up, but still they don’t budge.

Panic bubbles inside his chest and he starts thrashing against the bed, screaming, crying. What the fuck is happening? This is like HYDRA all over again. Making tables shatter and running into walls. He can’t do this. 

“Pietro?” 

He looks up, sees his sister standing over him. Is she doing this? Does she have him chained to this bed?

“Someone help!” she shouts. “Help!”

The door to the room bursts open, and men in masks crowd around him. There’s a needle in his arm, and he passes out again.

_

When Pietro wakes up next, he’s much calmer. Exhaustion stirs deep in every bone. And he hurts. He hurts terribly. His skull feels like it’s been bashed in and then glued back together, and his body screams like it would in the nightmares.

His vision is blurry when his eyes open, but it settles soon enough. He looks around the room to see that the entire team is seated around him. Wanda is the closest, right at his side. Her hand rests on the bed, close to his.

“Hi,” he croaks.

Wanda smiles, but her eyes fill with tears. “Hi, Pietro.”

He takes a deep breath. “What the hell is going on?”

Steve looks straight at him. “You want to know the truth? We’re here to tell you.”

Pietro just stares back. He doesn’t have the energy to say something sarcastic or angry. He just wants it all to be over. He closes his eyes. “Tell me.”

“You were right,” Steve begins. “You took eleven bullets. Ultron shot you with high-velocity, high-range assault rifles. You collapsed, and - Pietro - “

The sudden change of tone of voice makes Pietro open his eyes again. Wanda is crying silently beside him, and Steve is the only one looking him in the eye.

“You didn’t make it, Pietro.”

He sits there for a long minute, not quite able to let the words sink in. He swallows hard. “What?” 

“We got you onto the craft, but you bled out. We carried your corpse back home.”

“I died?” Pietro asks, and his voice sounds strange in his own ears.

Wanda lets out a sob, and that’s confirmation enough.

“I don’t understand,” he whispers. “I’m not - I’m not dead now.”

“No,” Steve continues. “No, you’re not. SHIELD has developed a dangerous technology. They tested it on other subjects, but very few were successful. You survived HYDRA’s experiments, and we believed you would survive Project T.A.H.I.T.I. In addition, Helen Cho worked her magic on your wounds. We had your body back within hours, but it took longer to get your brain working again. That’s where T.A.H.I.T.I came in.”

Pietro feels suddenly nauseous. He knows he’s going to regret asking as soon as he does, but he needs to understand everything before he can feel okay. “What . . . is Project T.A.H.I.T.I.?”

Steve looks around at his team members.

“You might as well show him,” Sam sighs.

“Show me?” 

Steve looks at him with the saddest expression he’s ever seen. “The experiment was recorded. To fully understand what happened to you, we’ve all agreed it would be easiest just to see the video.”

Sam stands up and walks over to the television hanging in the corner of the room. He swings it around so Pietro can see and presses play.

The screen starts out dark before it flickers to the image of a woman in a white coat.

“T.A.H.I.T.I log number nine-point-oh-eight-two-seven-nine. Subject is Pietro Maximoff. Body is fully operational. Brain is inactive. We will move forward with procedure.”

The screen flickers again and Pietro sees himself lying on a bed in a dark room. There are five people in white coats, masks hiding their faces. One of them rolls in a large machine containing what turns out to be a laser.

“Clear,” the man says before pulling it out. He aims the laser at video-Pietro’s head. “In three, two, one - “ He turns the laser on, and someone steps up behind video-Pietro. Carefully, the laser moves, creating a perfect line all the way around video-Pietro’s head. Then the laser goes off, and video-Pietro’s skull come sliding clean off, his skin and hair still attached.

Present-Pietro nearly vomits. “What the hell are they doing to me?” he whispers, horrified. 

“Cauterization is a success, moving on,” the man in the tape says. He messes with the machine again, and what looks like mechanical spider legs come out of it. 

“Engaging.” 

The legs move forward and surround his brain, each one attaching themselves in a circle around the edge. 

“Procedure in full motion.” 

The legs begin to move, in a motion like a dance. They become electrically charged and zap the surface of his brain like a mini lightning storm. His body responds, moves without consciousness, and present-Pietro wants it to stop. He would look away, but he can’t, not if he wants to understand.

This continues for hours, and the time on the recording lapses over just ten seconds. Then, the unthinkable happens. Pietro watches as he’s brought back to life, like Frankenstein’s monster, and he is beyond disgusted, beyond terrified. He starts to hate himself like he never has before.

“No,” video-Pietro moans. “No, no, no - please, stop. Stop. Please. No, no. Please. Please stop.” He starts screaming, blood-curdling screams. He thrashes, but his body is strapped down. “Please, stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!” He’s sobbing now. “Please, stop! Let me die! Just let me die! I want to die, please! Please! I want to be dead, I don’t want this! Please!” He screams again, and is interrupted by his own sob.

Steve turns off the video then and clears his throat. “It goes on like that for awhile.”

Pietro doesn’t say anything. He can’t. He just sits there, staring at the darkened screen. He doesn’t remember all of that, but he can remember some of the pain, some of the emotions. He doesn’t remember begging for his life to end, but he isn’t surprised to have heard it.

“Pietro?” Wanda asks.

He wants to reply, he does, but he just can’t make the words come or his mouth move. He just - he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel. He supposes he should feel thankful, he should be glad that he was brought back and that he gets a second chance at life, gets to stay with his sister. But - he’s not. He feels betrayed for some reason. He feels used. He feels violated.

“Pietro?” Wanda asks again.

“I don’t - “ he starts, but he can’t finish.

He doesn’t know what to say. He wanted to know the truth, but now he would give anything to have all of this taken back. He doesn’t want to live with this knowledge - the knowledge that he died, that he was finally at peace, only to be ripped away and thrown back into this awful world without his consent. He doesn’t want to live knowing that the first thing SHIELD did was torture him back to life, strapped him against that bed and messed with his mind and his body just like HYDRA did. He doesn’t - he doesn’t really want to live.

He clears his throat.

“I think - I think I need to be left alone for a little while,” he says without looking anyone in the eye.

He can feel Wanda tense next to him, but someone takes her away anyway.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asks in the doorway.

Pietro barely gives an answer. He shrugs. “Just go, Wanda.”

She listens, thankfully, and when she’s gone, Pietro lowers himself back into the bed. He curls himself up into a fetal position and closes his eyes. For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t want to move. For the first time in a long time, he just wants to slow down.

_

 

Pietro is released the next morning. He’s calm, and collected, and the hospital sees no reason to keep him under surveillance. Sure, he isn’t panicking anymore, but that’s because he knows. And now that he knows, he’s traded fear for depression.

Wanda escorts him back to the Tower, and he doesn’t say a word. She tries to talk to him, but he ignores her and shuts himself away in his room. He doesn’t have anything to say, and he doesn’t have the energy to pretend.

This would be a good opportunity to throw himself back into training, and he does try, but after only a couple of normal-paced laps, he comes to a stop. He doesn’t want to run anymore. Especially if he’s not fast enough. He would much rather stay in his room and listen to his Sokovian audiobooks. At least he can’t fuck up listening to mp3’s. 

He would stay in his room, too, if it wasn’t for his new status as an official Avenger. He trains, and he attends meetings, and he goes on the missions. He does his job, but nothing more. He only ever did extra because running brought him joy. It doesn’t anymore. He’s not really sure what does. Is joy even real anymore? Are any of his emotions? They fucked with his brain so much, how does he even know he’s real?

A month after Pietro finds out the truth, Steve blows up at him during training.

He’s doing dodge work, and Wanda hits him for the seventeenth time.

“You’re not even trying, Pietro!”

“Don’t tell me what I am or am not doing!” he shouts back. “And you know, maybe I’m fucking tired. We’ve been training for five hours.”

“Five hours, and you can’t even dodge a rubber bullet.”

Pietro curls his lip and speeds up. “Come on, Wanda! Hit me again.”

She tries. She launches fire on him, and he dodges every single bullet.

“Suck on that, Cap! Now magic, Wanda. Use your magic!”

“I don’t know, Pietro,” Wanda starts. 

“Come on!” he screams, running a figure eight around her. “Hit me. Just fucking do it.”

So she does. She shoots magic in his direction, and it’s forceful. She’s not going easy on him, and he appreciates it. The more blasts he misses, the harder and faster she shoots them, but he refuses to slip up. He presses himself to go faster, faster, faster. Run faster, process faster, see faster, think faster. He does, almost to the point that Wanda freezes in front of him. He’s tearing across the floor at the speed of sound, and he feels such a rush. 

He sees ten flashes of magic in the air, and runs straight past them as if they were traffic cones. He screams with some sick and painful laughter and he doesn’t see where he’s going. His foot catches on something and he’s flying through the air, dragging the whole row of treadmills with him. He hits the wall six feet in the air and slides down with a groan.

Everyone rushes over to see if he’s okay, and he forces himself to stand.

“There you go, Cap,” he grunts. “That fast enough for you?”

He winces when he takes a step forward, but ignores it all the same. Training isn’t over, but he doesn’t give a shit. He leaves without a backward glance.

_

Twenty minutes later, Wanda is pounding on his bedroom door while he sits inside on his bed, turned away. He knows he should talk to Wanda; he owes her that, but he really just isn’t in the mood and he doesn’t know that he can keep his patience long enough to be civil about anything.

“Pietro, please,” Wanda whines. She’s quiet for a short moment. “I’ll break your door in if you won’t answer.”

Pietro sighs heavily. Groaning, he drags himself to the door and opens it slowly. Wanda stands there, eyes wet and mouth wobbly. Pietro takes a deep breath.

“What do you want, Wanda?”

She scoots past him and lets herself inside his room.

“I’m worried about you.”

Pietro groans again. “I’m fine, Wanda. Please, just leave me alone.”

Wanda wrings her hands out. “No, see - that’s how I know you’re not fine. What’s happening with us, Pietro? I’m your sister. I’m always here for you.”

Pietro grinds his teeth together. “Yeah, well - maybe I don’t want you to be.”

Wand takes a step back and blinks hard a couple of times against her tears. “What do you mean, Pietro?”

“Look, I just - I don’t feel like myself anymore. I’m really confused, and I - I don’t feel like you’re who you are anymore.” He turns away from her, feeling a lump form in his throat. He hasn’t said any of this out loud before. In fact, he hasn’t really sorted through his feelings at all.

“Pietro,” Wanda says quietly. “What - what are you saying? Am I not your sister anymore?”

“No,” Pietro huffs, still refusing to face her. “I just - It was like - I woke up, I came home, and I didn’t recognize you anymore. You’re - you’re a socialite, you’re like - like the sweetheart of the Avengers, you’re so in control. And - and that all happened without me.”

“Pietro - “

“And then - then I find out the truth. I - I died, Wanda. I died, and you let them do those things to me. You let them - you let them play with my brain like some kind of monster. And I - I never imagined that was something you would do.” He tries to swallow, but it’s like his muscles don’t work anymore, and he chokes. It sounds oddly like a sob.

“Pietro, listen to me - “

“No,” he whispers. 

“Pietro, I couldn’t - I couldn’t live without you,” Wanda continues anyway. He wraps his arms around his torso and squeezes hard. “I - I felt it - when you died. I felt all that pain, and I didn’t - I couldn’t live anymore. I was going to let myself die on that island, but Vision pulled me off. Nothing changed when I got here, and I started thinking of ways to take my life, because I couldn’t - Pietro, if you hadn’t been brought back, I would have done it.” She’ sobbing now, loud and hard, but Pietro can’t bring himself to care. He’s sobbing too, but he’s not sad. He’s angry. He’s betrayed.

“I don’’t care,” he whispers. “I don’t care, Wanda. I was dead. I was dead, and you let them bring me back, and - and that was selfish.” He turns back around then and looks her right in her glassy eyes. “You didn’t know what I wanted. You just did it - “

“Pietro - “

“Maybe I didn’t want to be brought back, Wanda. Maybe I wanted to be dead! Maybe I wanted to stay dead.”

She doesn’t say anything, and he just stares at her while she sobs. He should care. He really should care, because his sister - the only constant person in his life - just told him she was going to kill herself, but maybe he understands. Maybe he knows that feeling now, and maybe he had that chance, and maybe she just ripped it away from him.

“You should go, Wanda,” he says quietly.

She looks up, still silent, but her eyes plead for anything else.

“”Go,” he says, and he crosses the room to open the door. “Leave, Wanda.”

She does, and she sobs all the way. Pietro can hear her for hours after, trying to be quiet in her own room and failing miserably. He wishes he could care, but he can’t, and the apathy does nothing for his blossoming self-hatred.

_

Pietro is probably losing his mind; he’s accepted that. Something came undone when he watched that video of himself, and now he’s thriving in actions of self-destruction while he laughs in the faces of his clearly worried teammates. He’s moved on from the shock, from the betrayal, from the wistfulness, and now he just wants to taste it again. He wants to remember what it felt like to feel his heart stop.

He’s taken to doing things outside of training again, but it hasn’t been just running. Mostly, he’s been experimenting with extreme parkour, or really just trying to jump from building to building without falling to his death. It gives him an adrenaline rush, and he feels his heart pound like it’s ready to explode from his chest.

He probably shouldn’t do that kind of shit on missions, considering the trouble he could get others into, but there’s something inside of him that keeps stirring and begging for release and all he can do now to keep himself from breaking down is getting fucked up and carried away.

So now here he is, somewhere in Siberia, and he’s supposed to take a roundabout path into enemy territories, but he just can’t do that anymore. That route has such little opportunity for danger. He could sneak in so easily, and that’s just not fun. Instead, he heads straight for the front line, just so he can show off and feel the bullets sizzling right past him.

“Q, what are you doing?” Clint hisses into the comm.

“Don’t worry about it,” Pietro replies. “I have them right where I want them.”

“Pietro - “ Wanda scolds, and in response, Pietro shuts of his earpiece.

He laughs, high and wild as he tears through the field. Bullets rise up like mines underneath his feet. He closes his eyes just to feel the wind, and smiles something twisted. In that second, something snags him in the shoulder, then in the thigh. He swallows his panic and wills himself to go faster. His body doesn’t listen to him. Another bullet catches him in the side, and he winces.

A second before he’s pierced through the heart, he’s pulled off the ground. He looks over his shoulder and sees mechanical wings. Sam is pissed. So is Pietro.

He hangs off Sam like a fucking worm until they reach the Helicarrier. Then he’s deposited rudely on the floor.

“Lay down,” Steve says, appearing before him. “Sam’s gonna keep your wounds stable until we can get you back to medical. First we have to wait for Nat to complete your mission.” The way he says it is so acidic that Pietro can barely hold in a wince.

After Sam finishes, Wanda comes up to him, fresh out of breath and still glowing red.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

He scoffs. “I would have been fine.”

“You would have been shot. Again.” Wand lets out an angry sound that ends with a high-pitched squeal. “You have to watch out for yourself and stop being stupid. You’ll die if you don’t.”

Pietro doesn’t say what he’s thinking. (“Maybe I want to.”) He just doesn’t answer, and Wanda stares at him for a long moment before sighing and walking away.

Nat returns quickly, quicker than Pietro would have even with his super speed. The thought makes him sick. He wishes he could roll over and turn away from the group, but that would probably make the bleeding worse. Instead, he just closes his eyes and listens to Steve give orders.

“Alright round up, Avengers. We’re clear from the ground, but they’ve got drones in the air.  
We’ve still got to make it safely back to American airspace.”

It’s the longest ride of Pietro’s life, and he and Wanda once went on a roadtrip from Sokovia to Portugal. He kind of hopes he bleeds out and he tries to shift a little to make it happen, but someone is always watching him and Sam’s handiwork keeps him stable.

When he gets back to medical, it doesn’t take much before he’s ready to go again. He’s already started healing well, and all they have to do is pull one bullet out from his thigh and seal up the rest of his wounds and dress them.

Once he’s patched up, Steve enters the room, followed by the rest of the Avengers.

“Is this an intervention?” Pietro jokes.

Steve clears his throat. “We’ve come to a decision, Pietro, and for the safety of everyone, including yourself, you’re off the team.”

Pietro laughs; he can’t help it. “That’s an even better joke than an intervention, Cap.”

“I’m serious,” Steve says, somber. “The way you’ve been behaving in training recently, and with what happened in the field today, we don’t think you’re in any condition to be a part of the team right now. You can still train with us and attend meetings, but you’re not taking part in any missions.”

Anger rises in Pietro like venom. “No, no, you can’t do that - “

“I can, Pietro, and I am.”

“No, you fucking can’t. This team is the only thing keeping me sane. I can’t just - I can’t just stop.”

“Pietro,” Steve starts gently. “You’re not stable, and if you’re willing, I’ve talked to Wanda’s psychologist, and he’s willing to see you too. He specializes in super humans and - “

“No,” Pietro scoffs. “Hell, no.”

Steve shrugs. “Then there’s nothing I can do. I would - “

“Forget it,” Pietro interrupts. He hops down from the examination table and pushes past everyone. 

Out on the street, he feels like collapsing and breaking down. He wants to throw himself to the ground and let a car run over him. He wants to slide down the wall in the middle of the alley and cry for hours until he falls asleep and is left there to rot away. He wants to run down the sidewalk and then hurl himself off an overpass.

He doesn’t do any of that.

Instead, he drags himself back to the Tower, almost quite literally considering he doesn’t speed there. He doesn’t go to his room. He really doesn’t want to run into Wanda. He doesn’t want to run into anyone really, so he goes to the one place he knows will be empty at this hour and right after a mission: the training center.

The lights are off when he gets there, and he doesn’t turn them on. He likes it dark. For awhile - it could be minutes, could be hours - he walks aimlessly around. Nothing really interests him. He doesn’t want to run, doesn’t want to lift, nothing. He doesn’t really know why he’s here; he just wants to be alone.

Pietro sits down on one of the lifting benches. He really doesn’t like the way he feels right now: empty, hollow, like he’s got nothing left. He knows he was being stupid today, but he really didn’t think they would kick him off the team for it. He was the only one who got injured. Sure, Sam risked gunfire, but he didn’t get hit. And like, what if they had come out of nowhere instead of Pietro taking them head-on? He still would have been at risk no matter what.

Pietro sighs heavily and throws his head into his hands. He doesn’t understand how he got here. If he’s honest, life before his powers, in the hellscape of military Sokovia - it was hell. HYDRA gave him a chance, even if they turned out to be the wrong guys in the end, he still got his chance to do good. 

And then he died.

And maybe that should have been it, maybe he should have just stayed dead. Because something’s wrong with him now. Something is all screwed up in his head and he can’t make it right. He’s a liability to the team. He’s a liability to himself.

Pietro’s eyes graze over the wall of weapons, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s up and crossing the room. His hand reaches out and finds one of the rubber bullet guns. He plays with it, tosses it back and forth in his hands and then looks down the barrel to inspect.

He can accelerate objects, he knows this, he’s done it before. But could it be possible for him to accelerate the rubber bullet to the point that it would pierce him like a metal one?  
There’s only one way to find out.

Slowly, Pietro holds out the gun. He turns the barrel to face his chest and lines it up with his heart. He’s felt it stop before, but he doesn’t remember what it was like. What a wonder to feel it stop again.

Pietro closes his eyes and wraps his fingers tighter around the base of the gun. With all of his concentration, he focuses on the bullet, on making the atoms accelerate as fast as possible. He feels it start, feels the gun give the first little jerk. The bullet spins, rotating in the chamber, and once it reaches the maximum, he can shoot. Faster, faster, faster, and then the gun is practically thrashing around in his hand. Pietro’s finger rests on the trigger, and then - 

There’s an arm around his neck, choking him, holding him still. The gun clatters to the floor, and then his arms wrap themselves around to his back. He feels himself being cuffed and he fights to turn around and see who has him.

“Don’t even try,” she says.

He cranes his neck backward. “Nat?”

“Hold still,” she instructs. “I’m going to inject something into your upper arm.”

_

Pietro finds himself disoriented and groggy in a dark, metal room. There’s a bed underneath with blankets and a couple pillows. He looks around, finds a table, a large-backed chair, a small lamp, but no door.

“What the hell,” he mutters to himself.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

He nearly jumps out of his skin. The chair turns around and scoots forward, out of the chairs. Apparently, it’s just a regular-sized chair with someone sitting in. Someone Pietro has never met.

“Who the hell are you?” he asks.

The man gives him a smile and holds out his hand. “My name’s Andrew Garner. Maybe your sister has talked about me?”

Pietro looks at his hand, but doesn’t shake it. “So you’re the psychologist?” He seems rather friendly, normal even.

“Yes,” Garner affirms. He shifts in his seat again, and Pietro notices the clipboard in his lap. “I’ve been reading your file, and frankly, I don’t know where to begin.”

Pietro huffs a laugh. “Start anywhere you like.”

“Alright,” Garner says and clears his throat. “You attempted suicide. Why?”

Pietro sighs. “Look, it wasn’t like that. I was just curious.”

“Curious, how?” Garner asks.

Pietro shrugs. “I wanted to know if I could do it. I wanted to know what it was like to feel my heart stop again. I just - I wanted to know.”

“So this is about your death?” Garner asks. “And about your resurrection.”

Pietro swallows hard. His chest is starting to feel tight, and his eyes burn. “It’s been difficult,” he admits. “It’s been difficult to realize I was dead. I imagine - I imagine I was peaceful then. I haven’t felt peaceful since . . . ever.”

“So you sought out death again.”

“Yes,” Pietro says quietly. He’s quiet for a long moment, trying to sort through his mess of thoughts. He has so much that’s been on his mind lately, but he hasn’t been able to get any of it out. “I just don’t understand,” he begins again. “Why did they bring me back? I am no better than any of them. And did - did they think about what I wanted?”

Garner crosses his legs and leans onto his elbow. “Pietro, had you been suicidal before this incident? Had you felt suicidal any time in your life before your death?”

Pietro shrugs again. “It was always an option. Popular when we were teenagers. Nobody liked living in Sokovia, but nobody could get out.”

“Were you active about it yourself? Did you make any plans?”

Pietro shakes his head.

Garner flips through papers, humming. “So, you’ve been an adrenaline seeker, for awhile, though? Drugs, drinking, volunteering for experimentation?”

Pietro wants to laugh, but he can’t even make himself smile.

“Pietro, I’m going to ask one more question, and I want you to answer honestly.”

“Okay,” Pietro sighs. 

“Pietro, do you think you’re depressed?”

For the first time since they’ve been speaking, Pietro looks him in the eye. “My sister is, isn’t she? Well, that probably means I am too.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She hasn’t been herself since I came back, and neither have I. Our relationship has been struggling. She told me she thought about killing herself before Steve sent her to you. And well, I - “  
Garner nods.

“Well, Pietro, you’re not wrong. I did diagnose Wanda with depression, and you exhibit plenty of symptoms. I’m going to suggest you and I keep meeting. I want to talk to you more before I give a full diagnosis, and we can discuss options outside of therapy later. Do you think you would be up for that?”

Pietro doesn’t even have to think about it. It’s been months since he came back from the dead, and he hasn’t felt hope at all until now.

“Yes, Doctor Garner, I would like that.”

“As for your sister, all you need to do is talk to her, I think. That’s always a good place to start.”

Pietro gives a small smirk. “Um - Doctor Garner, am I allowed to leave?”

Garner sighs. “Unfortunately, no. You’ve been put on suicide watch and you’ll have to remain here for the next few days. However, if you’re looking for your sister, she’s right outside.” He steps to the opposite wall and knocks on it. Part of the wall pulls open and Wanda comes inside while Garner quickly collects his things

“Hi,” Pietro says quietly.

Wanda smiles. “Hi.”

“I’ll be outside if you need me,” Garner says and heads through the open door.

Wanda rushes forward and pulls Pietro into the tightest hug he’s ever experienced. He embraces for a second but then his ribs feel like they’re going to snap and shimmies out from her grasp.

“Sorry,” Wanda says sheepishly.

There’s an awkward moment of silence before Pietro just goes for it. “So - are you ever going to tell me how you and Vision got together?”


End file.
